The invention relates to sharpening apparatus in general, and more particularly to improvements in apparatus for sharpening cutting edges of butchers' knives and similar implements.
A knife which is used in a butcher shop, in a slaughterhouse or in a similar establishment must be sharpened at frequent intervals. In many instances, such knives are sharpened by hand, i.e., the handle or haft is held by the operator while a sharpening tool removes material from the blade in the region of the cutting edge. Manual sharpening is not entirely satisfactory, especially if the knife is to be sharpened at frequent intervals, because the quality of the sharpened cutting edge is not uniform from end to end and, furthermore, manual sharpening is highly likely to result in removal of excessive quantities of material from the blade with attendant reduction of the useful life of the implement. Even if the sharpening of the cutting edge happens to be satisfactory, repeated manual sharpening invariably entails a deformation of the cutting edge which is likely to exhibit pronounced hills and valleys or other undesirable configurations departing from an optimum shape.